鷺科lù kē

サギ科sagi ka

왜가리과waegari-gwa

Họ Diệc

Дэглийнхэнdelgiiŋkheŋ

General

Information is from dictionaries and other sources. Pinyin reflects Mandarin pronunciation; for some dialect names, it is no more than a polite fiction. Korean glosses are tentative. Comments and corrections welcome. Hover over Green LetteringGreen lettering at this site hides a tool tip with glosses, further explanations, etc. Hover cursor to reveal. to see additional information.

The general name for the herons in Chinese is 鹭lù. The character 鹭 is made up of the phonetic 路lù on top, and the character 鸟niǎo or 'bird' underneath. Herons are also known as 鹭鸶lùsī, which dates back to Classical Chinese. Sometimes the form 鹭鹚lùcí is also found. The term 鹭鸶lùsī may also be narrowly applied to the egrets.

In Taiwan, all ardeids are still known as 鹭lù, including bitterns, which are known as 小鹭xiǎo-lù'small heron'. However, Mainland ornithologists have come up with a new name for the small herons and bitterns: yán, sometimes written . These are simplifications of the character , which is an old name for the Chinese Pond Heron Ardeola bacchus and given the reading jiān by dictionaries. Its ancientness can be judged by the fact that even in the 说文解字shuōwén jiězì dictionary of the 2nd century AD it is described as an old name for the 䴔䴖jiāoqīng (Chinese Pond Heron).

As a simplification, is rather incongruous in retaining the obsolete radical on the left while simplifying the bird radical 鸟 on the right. Current normal practice, both Simplified and Traditional, substitutes the radical 开 for , i.e., 鳽 in the Traditional characters and in the Simplified characters. While read yán by ornithologists, the character has also been read as jiān (standard reading), qiān (wagtail), and zhān (hawk).

In the Mainland ornithological nomenclature, night-herons belonging to Gorsachius have been systematised as 夜鳽yè-yán'night-bitterns' and bitterns belonging to Ixobrychus as 苇鳽wěi-yán'reed bitterns'.

CULTURAL

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, the Egret (鹭鸶lùsī) was depicted in 'Mandarin Squares' (known as 补子bǔzi) attached to official uniforms of the high-ranking bureaucrats. It was the insignia of rank for Grade Six of civilian official.

Cò is a general name for storks (excluding adjutants), ibises, and certain types of medium-sized ardeid. Its scope includes the egrets but excludes the great herons and some night herons and bitterns. Attempts have been made in the ornithological naming to bring Vietnamese names into conformity with the scientific taxonomy.

Зусагzusag is a livestock term for two-year old ewes, nannies, and deer. In this way it indicates a position between the large and small white herons.